A media conference is a real-time or near real-time communication among three or more participants. Conferencing devices may support media conferences over a packet-based network. A conferencing device receives input data packets from the participants' end-user devices, processes the input data packets to generate output data packets, and communicates the output data packets to the participants' end-user devices.
Unfortunately, current conferencing devices allocate a media conference to a single processor with a limited amount of resources to devote to the media conference. As a result, current conferencing devices typically restrict the size of a media conference application according to a processor's memory, processing, or other resources. Without such a restriction, the media conference application could exhaust the processor's limited resources, resulting in substantial delays and performance degradations. Hardware and software developers need a system that supports a media conference application without restricting the size of the application based on a single processor's limited resources.